Our Brand Is Crisis
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 30, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
53
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 35 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
17
Negative:
6
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireDamon WiseJan 18, 2016
Sparks fly, but the grim cynicism of modern politics adds subversive weight to the film’s screwball comedy stylings and has a lot to say about modern politics, in the US as well as abroad. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliOct 30, 2015
he movie is funny enough to get its share of laughs but, in its angry heart, it’s a tragedy - and the saddest part is that too much of this story is true. Read full review
75
Boston GlobePeter KeoughOct 29, 2015
Green’s narrative confidence quickly kicks in, as well as the sharp dialogue by screenwriter Peter Straughan (“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”). More importantly, the film indulges in the unabashed goofiness that stoked Green’s “Pineapple Express,” and which Sandra Bullock demonstrated to raucous effect in “The Heat.” Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneKatie WalshOct 29, 2015
Jane is a genius, but she's deeply flawed and complicated, struggling with substance abuse, mental illness, her own past regrets. That dark underbelly adds depth and dimension to the ironic humor of Our Brand is Crisis. Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonOct 29, 2015
Provocative, intelligent but just a bit underwhelming, Our Brand Is Crisis — inspired by a 2005 documentary of the same name — plays as if the filmmakers started out with Oscar aspirations but ultimately weren’t up to the challenge. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversOct 28, 2015
Director David Gordon Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan sometimes stumble over this vast terrain of self-serving scoundrels (Trump trumps anything they can make up), but the laughs keep firing. Read full review
75
HitfixGregory EllwoodOct 20, 2015
The film is at its best when the storyline gets dangerously real and Bullock’s character struggles to justify the back room king making of a campaign with the needs of the country’s poor majority. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 12, 2015
Green wisely cedes control to his actors, with Bullock as the main engine pulling the material along. But neither his direction, nor any of the formidable performances, can do much to alleviate the bumpy road of Peter Straughan's screenplay. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 2, 2015
Our Brand is Crisis hits a lot of clunky notes and the end is unforgivably cornball, but it’s still one of the liveliest political black comedies I’ve seen in a while. The pacing is lickety-split, the talk is boisterous, and the cast is all aces. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonOct 27, 2015
David Gordon Green's Our Brand Is Crisis is a horror film wrapped in fast-talking political comedy. Read full review
70
VarietyPeter DebrugeSep 12, 2015
As played by Sandra Bullock, Our Brand Is Crisis political spin doctor Jane Bodine is easily one of the best female roles of the last 10 years. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comGlenn KennyOct 29, 2015
Though not without its entertaining moments—the cast, led by Sandra Bullock, is energetic, sharp and gets a fair number of juicy bits to rock out with. But as a whole, Our Brand is Crisis is a messy affair that sputters along when it should be humming with assured cynical momentum. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfOct 30, 2015
The dueling dirty tricks zing half the time.... But subplots involving naive volunteers getting their hearts broken feel like strands from a less ambitious movie. Read full review
60
The New York TimesManohla DargisOct 29, 2015
It’s cute for a while. The stars are pros, and their scenes, often staged so that the characters are within breathing distance of each other, have snap. Read full review
60
Screen DailyTim GriersonSep 12, 2015
Politics is a dirty business, but Our Brand Is Crisis doesn’t stick its hands into the muck sufficiently to be as entertaining or stinging as it could be. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthySep 12, 2015
Director David Gordon Green’s latest unpredictable addition to his resume is offbeat and appealing on some levels but is neither as funny nor as trenchant as it might have been. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 12, 2015
The film is in need of an edge that Peter Straughan’s screenplay fails to deliver.... Yet Sandra Bullock seems blissfully unaware of the film’s faults and delivers a performance that expertly plays on her strengths. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallOct 29, 2015
Our Brand Is Crisis shows flashes of insight cribbed from reality, nibbling the edges of satire without ever taking a big bite. Read full review
50
USA TodayBrian TruittOct 30, 2015
The movie unfortunately gets stuck between edgy drama and broad comedy, and most of the humor lands with a thud. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleOct 29, 2015
The attempt is to create a reality wide enough to accommodate the extremes of absurdity and hard political truth, but the pieces never cohere, and so we end up with a rattling bag of disparate elements. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperOct 29, 2015
A mixed-bag satire with ambitions that veer wildly from sharp political insight to slapstick farce to inspirational semi-autobiography. It never finds solid ground in any of those genres. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranOct 29, 2015
Nominally a satiric comedy, the film is only sporadically effective, running out of energy before it reaches the end. Read full review
50
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzOct 29, 2015
Gordon is an eclectic director, and he has trouble with the tone here. It’s not that cynicism can’t evolve into something more useful in film. It’s that the reasons should be more convincing. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovOct 29, 2015
Green and screenwriter Peter Straughan never completely go as far as they might have, satirically speaking. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephanie MerryOct 29, 2015
The movie turns out to be something we’ve seen before: an underdog tale mixed with a redemption narrative. Read full review
50
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Oct 29, 2015
It treats the complicated moves and countermoves of a major election as fodder for a broadly comic grudge match. Read full review
50
ObserverRex ReedOct 28, 2015
Our Brand Is Crisis adds up to a toothless exercise in missed opportunities that is half cautionary tale, half political satire and oddly insignificant as both. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyChris NashawatyOct 28, 2015
The comedy here isn’t very funny and the drama isn’t very sharp. Read full review
50
Movie NationRoger MooreOct 28, 2015
Green, who once had a solid and arty indy cinema career going, cannot for the life of him hit the right tone, here. The film is waterlogged when it should be jaunty, and the cynicism and the sentimentality are kept at arm’s length. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanOct 29, 2015
Director David Gordon Green steers a clumsy course between crass humor and sudden drama. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineEric HendersonOct 28, 2015
It only serves to validate George Clooney's devotion to showmanship as Hollywood's current reigning poster boy for blue-state morality. Read full review
35
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeOct 29, 2015
Even a better political satire would have a hard time keeping up with the bizarrely eccentric vaudeville currently taking place on cable news, but Our Brand Is Crisis can’t even come close. Read full review
33
The PlaylistNikola GrozdanovicSep 12, 2015
It has all the makings for Green to find that sweet-spot between drama and comedy, and make something special. Instead, we're left with something exasperatingly bland and almost claustrophobically generic. Read full review
25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)John SemleyOct 29, 2015
It’s the kind of film that can’t even bother to commit to its own cynicism, which makes it the most deeply cynical kind of film there is. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternOct 29, 2015
This satire, directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay by Peter Straughan, suffers from deficits of wit, wisdom, focus, filmmaking expertise and appropriate tone. It’s a case study, if nothing else, of starting with a dubious idea and making it downright awful. Read full review
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